The Vatican Now Officially Approves of the Beatles

Posted on Apr 12, 2010

The Vatican continues to be rocked by a wide-ranging sex abuse scandal, and the pressure it’s under could have something to do with its newly revised opinion of The Beatles. Although the Holy See’s official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, pointed to the potentially Satanic content of the Brit band’s music, as well as the group’s bigger-than-Jesus grandstanding, the paper ultimately gave the Beatles its blessing. —KA

Update: Surviving Beatle Ringo Starr wasn’t exactly jumping up and down about the Vatican’s change of heart, judging by his reaction in this interview.

Daily Mail:

Absolving the British group of their excesses involving ‘drugs and blasphemy’, the Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano hailed them as a ‘precious jewel’.

[...] The decision to heap praise on the group in the middle of a series of sex-abuse scandals raised eyebrows among commentators.

One said: ‘With all that is going on within the Church, to write about The Beatles instead of focusing on the scandal of abusive clergy does seem rather odd.’